Sermon On The Mount

The Unity of Life

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 22-25

Genre:

Track: 22

Dictation Name: Sermon on the Mount – 22

Location/Venue:

Year: 1980

Almighty God our Heavenly Father we give thanks unto Thee that Thou art the Lord. That all things are in Thy hands who doest all things well and so we come to Thee that by Thy word and by Thy spirit we may be made more than conquerors as we face a world of evil, a world in which iniquity rules in high places, a world that is determined to defy Thee. But Thou oh Lord who sittest on the circle of the heavens doth laugh. Thou dost hold them in derision. Fill us with Thy heavenly laughter and make us strong and bold as we face the powers of darkness that in Christ’s name we may triumph. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Let us turn to Matthew 7:13-20. We have been going through the Sermon on the Mount and we now come to the last portion of it and our next meeting two weeks hence we shall conclude the Sermon on the Mount with verses 24 following. Our subject as we deal with Matthew 7:13-20 is the Unity of Life.

“Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:

14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”

Now it is important as we read the bible to read it as a unity. As we read a book of the bible we need to read it as a unity. Too often people do not pay attention to the unity of the bible. One of my favorite stories has to do with something that took place in the thirties in an Episcopal or Church of England school for boys in England. Those of you who are familiar with the Episcopal Church, and a part of my seminary training was Episcopal, know of the lectionary which describes daily readings for evening and morning prayer from the Old Testament and the New. In this particular chapel service boys rotated as readers reading the daily lesson. This boy had the portion of reading to do that had to do with Paul’s shipwreck. His reading went through the storm. When he finished the appointed portion he kept on reading into the next chapter and the head master whispered to him ‘that’s enough, you’ve finished the reading’ and the boy kept on reading and finally the headmaster stood up and said that’s enough, you’ve come to the end of the daily lesson and the boy said shut up I want to see what happened. Now that boy made more sense than the lectionary, why? Because he wanted to read the study for the day, the lesson for the day, in context to see what happened. Too often we fail to do it and as a result we miss the meaning of scripture. Now the Sermon on the Mount is a unity. What our Lord does is to begin with certain statements concerning blessedness, happiness, prosperity. Blessed are the poor in spirit, they who feel their spiritual need. Blessed are the meek, that is those who have been broken to harness, who’ve been tamed, who are now disciplined and usable by God, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. We must remember the context. Our Lord is dealing with how to be blessed, happy, prosperous, successful. No one has as their goal in life unless they are twisted and warped in their outlook misery, unhappiness, and failure.

Our Lord says I am the way, here is the way, hear my word. And so He says:

““Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:

14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”

What is He talking about? Well the straightway, the straight gate means straight, literally, restricted, crushed in and it is an image common to the ancient world far beyond the borders of Palestine for the way of discipline, of discipleship and the point is that most people do not want to be disciplined. They do not want to be effective in their lives, they just want to live and enjoy life on a minimum basis as far as responsibility is concerned, as far as discipline is concerned. Discipline today is not a popular word, we’ve lost a great deal of its meaning because we have become an undisciplined generation. Sometime back I referred to certain aspects of discipline when I was dealing two or three years ago in our Friday night series on educational philosophy. And I pointed out to summarize briefly how in earlier generations because discipline was so much a part of life, especially among the puritans, that abilities were greatly heightened, focused and brought to life. Child prodigies were for a few centuries there very common place. Child prodigies who at the ages of four or five, six were performing remarkable things, composing works of music which are still enjoyed. Or like Pascal able by the age of nine and ten from a single sentence to reconstruct all of geometry. His father had wanted him to concentrate on other areas of mathematics and had not taught him geometry but from a single sentence defining geometry Pascal was able to construct all of it.

True, he was a genius, but it was routine in the early years of the last century for young Americans to go to sea at seven to nine years of age and to be ship officers by the time they hit their teens and to be a captain of a ship at eighteen. It was commonplace, these were not geniuses, it was discipline that was the keynote. A discipline that enabled them to master things very early. My father in terms of the kind of schooling he had and while he was a university man trained in Europe none the less those of his classmates who were farmers had the same characteristics, he could remember into his old age the name of every textbook he had and the author from the first grade on through the university. I forgot the theorems of geometry and my algebra three or four years out of high school, he could remember them all. Now that kind of training was once routine. I believe it will come back as the Christian school movement develops and grows but this is what it speaks of here, the straight gate. The way of discipline. But even more the way of discipline and discipleship in Christ who says I am the way, the truth and the light. The straight gate, the straightway is the way of responsibility, of discipline into a responsible life. Redeeming the time for the days are evil. A discipline in regards to time, life, our abilities, everything. Nothing of course comes cheaply. Everything in life has its invisible prices and rewards, something this century has failed to learn. Then our Lord goes on to say ye shall know them by their fruits. There is a unity in life. One of the deadliest doctrines unleashed into western civilization comes from the Greeks and it was a doctrine that divided man into two beings, mind and matter.

Some held a tripartite view, mind, soul and matter. But basically the division was two kinds of beings that were in a unhappy fusion. The two were more or less unrelated so that you could be physically guilty of many things as with Socrates who could discourse on virtue while indulging in homosexuality but morally your mind could be pure because your heart was supposedly pure. This is of course what the problem was in the Corinthian church whereas Paul says they boasted of their liberty, fornication, incest, none of these things mattered, after all they were pure of heart. What they did with their body was something else. This was the dualistic view. Now we have this not in the extreme fashion that the Greeks held it but in a modified form so that people will jump on you if you say something about someone saying you can’t judge the heart. Maybe they did this and that but you can’t judge the heart. Our Lord is speaking against that kind of thinking. Remember, the time that our Lord lived was unlike any other age in the history of the world except ours, in that it was a time when civilization was essentially urban. Very cosmopolitan. Life in Jerusalem and in the cities of Judea was not like the pictures we see of the holy land in artist’s depictions. Everybody besides speaking Aramaic which then was the modern form of Hebrew spoke Greek, many of them spoke Latin. Jerusalem had its Roman baths, it had a sizable element of the population that greatly admired Greek cultures and others who were very pro-Latin in their cultural orientation. These people prided themselves on their urban ways. Naturally Jesus coming from Galilee was regarded as a hick despite his obvious education, his learning.

Is there anything good out of Galilee or Nazareth? That was their attitude. The hicks couldn’t produce anything, their perspective was urban and they had picked up this doctrine. The heart, but out of the heart is the issues of life and ye shall know by their fruits. So our Lord gives us the answer to these people who tell us oh you can’t judge the heart, oh you can. By their fruits shall ye know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth good fruit but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Now, what our Lord here makes emphatic is the unity of life, the unity of life. As one of the old puritans observed once he said you can put figs on thistles and you can put grapes on thorns but they cannot grow there. And figs on thistles and grapes on thorns very quickly are detectable as out of place, they whither. So our Lord is making clear that false prophets can easily be detected. He’s giving us a means of judging the church. Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly they are ravening wolves. So His whole point here is those who come to you and who deny this unity of life, the doctrine of the carnal Christian, for example, which is very widely promoted. We have a man who has very extensively promulgated this doctrine in the lordship of Christ which Ross House has published, Dr. [unknown] deals with one very prominent preacher of this carnal doctrine who says that once you say yes to the lord and you say yes lord I accept you as my savior you can then be a murderer, an adulterer, you can forget about the Lord and become an atheist but you are still saved because in your heart now you are right with the Lord.

Our Lord says by their fruit shall ye know them. And what can you say of a preacher who promotes this kind of doctrine which is very popular, extremely popular. Why he is a false prophet, come to you in sheep’s clothing but actually a wolf. The Greek view is false, our Lord spoke clearly against it. By their fruit shall ye know them and every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Now our Lord there is not talking about the ungodly, there is no question there, He’s talking about trees that are supposedly within the pasture or the orchard of the Lord. He’s talking about antinomians, those who despise God’s law. You don’t keep a dead tree or a worthless tree going. You cut down the thistles, you cut down the thorns that grow in your field, in your vineyard or your orchard and this is what our Lord is talking about. And this is why the scriptures tell us judgment shall begin where? At the house of God, at the house of God. So that when God sees evil in the world surely it is a time of judgment and we live now in a time of judgment and God’s judgment begins at the house of God in every generation, when he begins to bring judgment on the world. Therefore our Lord is summoning us to be the blessed meek, the tamed of God, broken to harness. So that indeed our life is in terms of the straightway, the disciplined way and we bear fruit unto him. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God we give thanks unto thee that Thy word is truth and that Thou hast called us to discipleship, to responsibility, and to bear fruit unto Thee. Make us faithful, make us productive, make us responsible and manifest Thy so great salvation, Thy victory in and through us and grant oh Lord that the kingdoms of this world might speedily become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. In His name we pray, Amen.

Are there any questions about our lesson today? Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Very good question. In chapter thirteen we have the parable of the tares and the wheat. The tares we have to first of all know what we mean by them, the tares are a false wheat, they are something that looks like wheat but is not designable as wheat until it ripens, it’s ready to produce. Now thorns and thistles are obviously what they are and a dead tree is obviously what they are. And what our Lord says in the parable of the tares and the wheat is we’re not going to be able to tell in the early stages so don’t try. Wait, wait until they are fully what they are, until it’s open, obvious. In other words it’s near the time of harvest when the tares are obviously what they are and the wheat is obviously what it is. Then He says the angels of judgment will separate them. So it’s not that they are not to be separated but there is a difference. The thistles are very obvious, the tares are only obvious when the showdown comes. Now we have a good example of a tare in the New Testament in Paul’s circle. Someone who was with him on one missionary journey after another and then finally at the point of showdown let Paul and forsook the faith. Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world. So you see he was a tare, it was not obvious until a certain point and then the separation came, the circumstances compelled Demas to leave, he wasn’t ready to pay the price. Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] No, in many passages we are told how many they are that are saved, a great throng innumerable and some of the theologians like Hopkins doing some demographic computations said that in due time the population of the world will be so great that compared to what it is now the number will be astronomical and with the greater majority of mankind in those days brought into the faith the ratio of those saved to those lost they said it will be something like seventeen thousand to one. There are more people alive today that have ever died in the whole history of mankind to date. Now, what is meant there, remember, the straight gate means the way of discipleship, of discipline, of responsibility, of fullness of service. So most people are unwilling to take that way. Most people want to be saved, to get in you know by the skin of their teeth. They want to treat the faith as fire insurance and life insurance. So they are content to say that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior and not Lord what wilst thou have me to do. Their lives don’t count for much. So our Lord is summoning the disciples and all that are truly of the faith to become productive and the warning is if they don’t bear fruit or if their fruit reveals they are alien they are going to be cut off, remember in John 14 our Lord speaks of the fact that I am the vine and ye are the branches. And what does He say? The branches that aren’t bearing fruit are going to be pruned off and thrown into the fire so you’d better produce. So the straightway means the full faithfulness of service.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] For the few that are within the faith, you see, He’s talking to the disciples. The few who really want to be Christians in the full sense of the word, who want to live up to the requirements. Most want to be seat warmers rather than soldiers.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Or a few who are responsible in terms of it, in other words most of them are ready to be minimum Christians and the danger is they will be none at all, that’s the idea. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Question] I don’t get any economic newsletters or read any economic newsletters I just wondered if there was anything in the economic field you care to bring up to date on, bring us up to date on?

[Rushdoony] There’s not much to say on the economic outlook except that it’s a time of judgment. We’re going to see very heavy inflation and I don’t see much hope of altering that on the part of the new administration, the cabinet choices indicate that it’s going to be more of the same. We have someone who’s a little nicer than Jimmy but not much better so the economic outlook is for more inflation. The time will come when the twenty percent interest rate we see today will look like it is a modest interest rate. So the twenty percent is just a harbinger of what’s coming.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Probably.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Banks were loaning money in Germany in the inflation of the twenties even when it was up to ninety percent, there were always takers…well with that we will adjourn until two weeks from now.